Residents gave Porter County officials an earful on data centers during two consecutive meetings Tuesday.
Union Township School Corp. Superintendent John Hunter doesn’t want a large data center built just north of Wheeler High School and the adjacent Union Township Middle School.
“We know there is a place for a data center. We just don’t believe it’s in Union Township,” he said.
“We are really going to create a dead zone from a residential standpoint” if the data center is built, he said. “That’s roughly one-third of our township,” which could have a major impact on the school system, he said.
The Plan Commission has an application for a proposed data center, but it’s not considered a complete application until the county’s staff approve it for consideration, County Attorney Scott McClure said. Once they’ve vetted the application, including the rezoning request, the Plan Commission is obligated to hear the request, McClure said.
“We all as American citizens have due process,” he said, and the same principle applies to Plan Commission requests.
The Plan Commission’s decision, if the application isn’t withdrawn, wouldn’t be final. That board gives either a favorable or unfavorable recommendation to the project, with the three-member Board of Commissioners making the final decision.
“All of us people are terrified that it’s up to these three people,” resident Severin Fisher said.
Mike Jabo, Porter County’s director of planning and stormwater management, has said the petitioner requested placement on Wednesday’s Plan Commission agenda, but the staff didn’t place it there.
The petitioner hasn’t requested any financial incentives like a tax abatement, Jabo said at Tuesday’s Redevelopment Commission meeting before a County Council meeting.
When it’s time for an official public hearing on the project, a venue larger than the commissioners chambers at the Porter County Administration Building will be chosen, he said.
Proposed data centers have been rejected by Chesterton, Burns Harbor and Valparaiso officials.
County Council President Andy Vasquez, R-4th, who also sits on the county Redevelopment Commission, saw how Valparaiso officials handled the data center issue, he said, and assured residents at Tuesday night’s council meeting they would all be given a chance to be heard.
Normally, the County Council invites public comment only on agenda items, but he made an exception Tuesday.
“What you have to say is important to us,” Vasquez said. However, the real decision is up to the Board of Commissioners, he said. “If this data center thing is a 1- to 20-step process, we are step 20.”
Fisher said he got 200 people to sign up for yard signs in just one week to defeat the Valparaiso proposal for a data center to be built on land the city had acquired for a potential sports complex. Neither the data center nor the sports complex will be built there now.
“I feel that these companies are only threading the needle through the loopholes,” Fisher said.
“Why don’t they build 50 miles south,” he suggested.
Wheeler resident Liz Bennett and other residents suggested building the data center in Gary, which is starved for tax revenue and has all the amenities a data center would need – easy access to water for cooling, plenty of electricity for power-hungry servers, a super-fast internet connection and room to build in an industrial area.
Bennett questioned the Redevelopment Commission’s vote to hire Barnes & Thornburg on an as-needed basis to help with tax-increment financing issues. Barnes & Thornburg has represented data centers in the Indianapolis area, she said.
Vasquez abstained from that vote, saying he hadn’t had time to think about it before Tuesday’s meeting. He was too busy fielding calls from residents, he said.
“I have been fighting tooth and nail against the Willowcreek (Road) extension,” Bennett said. County officials have promised that there would be a one-mile buffer on either side of the road to prevent it from being heavily commercialized.
“That project’s not even done, and now we have an industrial park in our backyard,” she said.
“To me, this is killing an entire community,” Bennett said.
The proposal hits home for Bennett. “Our house is literally one of those consumed by all of this,” she said.
Melissa Reid said building a data center would probably be the biggest development in Porter County since the steel mills were built. It would be “three Walmarts tall” with a 50-foot setback, she said.
One resident spoke of the hyperscale data center under construction in New Carlisle. “It’s impressive and terrifying at the same time,” he said. His concerns include the heavy power consumption data centers require and whether NIPSCO’s residential customers would be burdened more than industrial customers by the cost of additional electrical generation capacity.
NIPSCO’s proposed settlement in its current electric case said any future data centers, not existing customers, would foot the bill for the extra generating capacity they require. However, some residents referred to the Indiana General Assembly’s ability to change that.
Reid also said that Blackstone, a company whose portfolio includes data centers, owns nearly 20% of NiSource, which is NIPSCO’s parent company.
Amy Heuring is a business owner. “I consider Wheeler to be the most amazing place to raise children,” she said, but she fears the environmental effects that might come from a nearby data center.
“We’re not going to let these people come in and treat us like guinea pigs,” she said.
Cory Griffith fears building a data center in Union Township “would really ruin the Valpo experience.”
Porter County could generate a lot of property taxes from a new data center, but she would prefer raising the income tax to allowing a data center. “There are other ways to make up that money,” she said.
Marissa Barnes promised to be “at every single meeting until this is handled.”
She’s concerned about the possible environmental effects of data centers. Barnes, who lives in Shorewood Forest, wondered who would pay to clean up Lake Louise if the data center contributes to problems there.
She also wondered how the playground at Union Center Elementary School and the soccer fields at Wheeler High School and Union Township Middle School might be affected by emissions connected to a data center, along with potential groundwater contamination.
“I sort of think it would wreck the schools there,” said Meredith White, who built a home in Union Township two years ago.
“I’m willing to overthrow the commissioners,” Barnes said, to prevent a data center from locating in the township.
Vasquez distributed a statement from the council on data centers, spelling out the county’s process for considering requests from developers and committing to a transparent process, including a special meeting of the Plan Commission to take place before the formal public hearing process and at a venue large enough to accommodate attendees.
For the Willowcreek Road extension, the commissioners held a similar meeting at the Porter County Expo Center, which has larger meeting rooms. The room was packed that night.
Unlike the council, the Board of Commissioners hasn’t released a statement on data centers, said Commissioners President Jim Biggs, R-North, who is president of the Redevelopment Commission. Biggs doesn’t like them, but he’s just one of three members of the Board of Commissioners, he noted.
“We’re going to hear from you. Our emails and our phone numbers are published,” he said.
“Let’s see what we can learn about it,” Biggs said. “I know basically what you know about it.”
The commissioners killed a proposal to build a solar farm near Malden in Morgan Township after a loud public outcry, but the county doesn’t have a moratorium on solar farms, he said. Like a solar farm, a data center would have to be built in the right location, Biggs said.
Although the outcry at Tuesday’s Redevelopment Commission and County Council meetings was clear and heard, that doesn’t mean everyone opposes data centers.
“There’s people sitting in their homes right now, in their recliners, reading the news about this, and they want it,” Biggs said.
A data center would be a big boost to the property tax base, and the county is facing tough decisions on how to pay for improved road maintenance and address other issues.
Maintaining the quality of life in Porter County means either cutting services – and the vast majority of the county’s spending is for public safety – or raising money.
As the county considers allowing a data center, Biggs promised to be thorough in vetting the proposal. “If we end up saying no, there’s going to be a clear reason for it,” he said.
For Councilman Andy Bozak, R-At-large, whose wife sits on the Burns Harbor Town Council, the outcry was clear Tuesday night as well as at previous hearings for proposals elsewhere in the county. “Nobody came in support of it,” he said. “I think our community has spoken.”
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
